Cowboy Confessional

Working with other musicians can be a downright joy.

Lately I have had Steve Laciak (who I have nicknamed “One Take Laciak”) doing lead guitar on some demos. Steve is of that caste of musicians that take his craft seriously and life … not so much. The result is he comes into the studio, listens to a demo twice, ask a few questions, and lays down interesting stuff in record time.

Take this revised version of Jack Black. Though we did not punch-in to eliminate all bum notes and weak spots, his addition brought a different flavor to the underlying song and made the demo more presentable. What makes finding and working with people like Steve (and my recurring bass player Mike) is that their ear and their attention add instant life to the session and the songs.

The lesson, young songwriters, is don’t waste time with friends or people who must consume intoxicants before recording. Take one step up from there and get your demos in shape much faster and with better results.

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People watchful for signs of the Apocalypse saw one this morning as news broke that both ABBA and The Stooges will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

To steal yet another line from Mojo Nixon, “What could be less rock and roll than ABBA. The Archies?”

For people fortunate enough to sleep through the 1970s, ABBA was a pop quartet that recorded more mindless and soul sucking AM/FM static than all of disco combined. Devoid of anything aside from a beat and antiseptic vocals, ABBA none the less sold millions of records, proving again that musical mediocrity will always be profitable (hence disco and its inner city sibling, rap).

For the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to induct this unfortunate Swedish export violates the Hall’s very name and essence. But as Mojo reminded us, its all about the money.

Until Iggy pops ABBA one.

At the same time ABBA strolls into the Hall, Iggy Pop, band front man and source of his own solo insanity, will be inducted with the other Stooges. Unlike ABBA’s homogenized harmonies, The Stooges and Iggy slammed danced in from the other direction, taking the soul of rock and roll to utterly new gritty lows (and I say that in the good sense of low). Instigators of punk and very heavy rock, Iggy and The Stooges are the anti-ABBA.

The universe as we know it may cease to exist on induction night as these two opposing forces collide. Like good and evil, matter and anti-matter, music and whatever it was that stuff was that ABBA recorded – they may cancel one another and all matter out of existence.

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I could get used to this real quick.

There is a holy place in the unholy town of Berkeley, California. Smelted in the 1960’s along with several thousand other coffee shops (the American variety, not the Amsterdam kind, though in the 60’s the differences were minor) was The Freight. Its proper name is The Freight and Salvage Coffee Shop. The Freight came by their name dishonestly. When founded they took over a building that had been a freight and salvage warehouse and decided to keep the signage. The name stuck.

Unlike the several thousand other coffee shops in hippie-era Berkeley (or as we locals like to call it, Bizerkely) The Freight survived, and did so primarily because the music played there. Lord knows their coffee is not top-shelf and the price they take for a tiny cup would cause the typical gray-haired Berkley hippie to charge them with making obscene profits.

The Freight caters to folk music, be it Americana, Celtic, African or Martian. Anything that is native and unamplified. For 40 years, unknown and world renowned performers played tasty tunes on The Freight’s microscopic stage … after exiting a green room the size of a prison cell and with the same ambiance. History walked on The Freight’s stage.

Whenever I went to The Freight, I always stopped for a moment in the lobby. On the walls were calendars going back to their beginnings. One playbill showed the night Bukka White played. For those uneducated in the history of blues, Bukka was BB “Blues Boy” King’s older cousin who got BB into the music biz. Bukka did old school delta blues more authentic than anything else recorded with the exception of Robert Johnson.

Hopefully Bukka didn’t make any crossroad deals.

I loved playing on the tiny Freight and Salvage stage. I never gigged there as I don’t gig at all. But The Freight was the monthly meeting place for a songwriters’ competition. The room itself is completely improbable for good acoustics. It is a small rectangle of cinderblocks, custom made for harsh standing waves. But over the years sound buffers were erected here and there, a solid sound system was assembled, and dedicated mix masters manned the console.

The Freight made even me sound good.

And now it is gone … kinda. The old venue is closed. I’ll never have the chance to stand on that stage again, and this is a sad thing. Closed to the public are the quaint black walls, the mismatched and completely third hand chairs, and restrooms designed by some who took a lot of acid in the 1960’s. RIP Freight and Salvage.

Welcome the new joint.

After a couple of years and a lot of donated money (The Freight is a non-profit venture), they have opened a new venue that I visited today and in which I might want to be buried. Using salvaged wood from the old place, the walls are wonderfully absorbent, allowing undistorted sounds to come from the house speakers to your ears. The stage is wide and with enough back ported monitors to ensure tat every performer will know how they are doing. They have a new mixing board seeming designed by NASA (control knobs are embedded in touch screen panels, the all digital systems stores and recalls specific mixes, and the faders and motorized and move when a mix is restored). Audience seats are new, recline slightly, and match.

The coffee is still marginal.

And there is the rug. On the old stage there was a Persian carpet so think you would trip on the rise the first time you headed for a microphone. It was there to absorb the boot stomping of us excitable performers. And unless I am mistaken, that little slice of history – the same threads upon which many masters of music trod – was brought to its new home.

I sure hope it is the same one. I’m looking forward to standing on it again.

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Having written songs and performed solo for way too long, it is odd being in a band. (We’ll call it a band. More like four guys who wanted to jam and needed a good reason to drink week nights). Individually we are all quite good. Collectively we are sloppy with occasional outbursts of brilliance.

Working with TBD (the name for this mob, though the drummer is pushing to rename us the Poontang Clan) came with a few surprises. Interestingly the only western song I’ve ever written was the one onto which the band latched like malnourished remoras. I found this odd as note a single band member was hooked on westerns in real life. The drummer leans toward Dave Alvin and James McMurtry. The lead guitarist knows sleazy Stones and classic Beatles. The bass player covers anything including upholstery, but coughs up Jackson Brown and Phish numbers.

And they all went western. I can’t figure this one out. Perhaps they smoked a little/lotta something before rehearsal or my channeling Johnny Cash swayed them.

The biggest surprise was how I had to let go of my own song. I’m overly found of funky breaks, dramatic pauses, and changing tempos. These work when you are alone on stage, but drive most band members to drink. Sorry, to excessive drink. Wait, they already take booze intravenously. Let’s just say trying to follow me and my flourishes is as aggravating as the rap music I’m listening to at the very moment … coming from a Buick eight blocks away.

I had to release control of my own song. It is like offering up your first born male child to Michael Jackson (too soon?). The lead player wanted to pad the post-chorus turn-around with an extra bar. The bass player wanted double down on a fill chord. Everyone wanted a different ending. There were enough changes that I had trouble following my own tune.

But the changes were good. As a unit, the combo produced something live audiences would enjoy more and that we were less likely to botch on stage. I love the original song most, but I love this bastard step child just the same.

We often read about bands breaking apart due to creative differences. Understandable. All creative people have a vision, and those dropping LSD by the fist full have many visions. All artists want to see their visions fulfilled. There comes a point when individuals need to create a body of work uniquely their own. But before that, there is a long period of collaboration, of give-and-take. It has to happen because four soloists on stage sounds like Hell with hemorrhoids, which sounds like the rap music I’m listening to at the very moment … coming from a Chevy nine blocks away.

I’m unsure where the boundary lay. My band mates have not required anything of me I was unwilling to do (reluctant, yes – unwilling, no). But I’m willing – perhaps even anxious – for them to keep pushing. Their creativity counts.

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Drilling down through my list of songs to record or fix, I encountered Stolen Horses, the only outright Western I’ve ever written.  Two years have lapsed between the original recording and this fix, which was actually a blessing.  In those two years the recording studio software has been radically updated as has been my engineering know how.

So aside from rerecording the vocals completely (they still are substandard), this version of the song is merely a remix but several furlongs ahead of what preceded it.

Alas, unless I encounter the reincarnation of Waylon Jennings, this will likely be the last remix.  The market for Western songs is slightly smaller than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s soul and worth about as much.  Should any other insane person ever contemplate assembling a CD of my lesser hits, this song will sadly be on it.

Shame.  A tune about love, loss and homicide should be on everybody’s MP3 player.

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